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The Reels 2014 Cancelled

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The organizers of The Reels Film festival announced that the 2014 edition is cancelled. A pretty sad news for the industry as well as the fans who were coming more and more in mass every year…

Julien, Gaylord and Aïssam, the 3 boys behind the event, have decided to postpone this coming edition of The Reels. “We don’t want to make a mediocre event” says Gaylord, “and are taking the next year to reassess and come back stronger. In the last two editions of The Reels, we focused on providing the best platform for the Production Companies to showcase their work. We had an awards ceremony: The Golden Reels. 126+ pro snowboarders from all over the word flew to France to kick start the season with their homies and fans in a fun atmosphere that included art exhibitions, beers, parties and free activities. The event is costly. Coming out of an Olympic year, we’ve noticed brands were putting their resources to Sochi. Even if passion can move mountains, money is our primary ally. Times are hard for our industry and budgets have been cut left and right. Probably not only due to the Olympics but also because of the economy. Obviously, we don’t want to go backward because we’re aiming to improve everything we do. So it’s with a tear in our eyes that we are announcing we won’t be running a third edition of The Reels in October 2014. We’re willing to answer any questions and comments you may have, so please email us at info@the-reels.com. See you all next year!

Of course, this sad news was primarily announced to the judges, including Ingemar Backman: “Sad to hear but I understand. Hopefully I see you next year. Keep up the good work. Keep it Reels!”

On the event front this autumn, the Snowboard Garden Festival is happening from 16th to 18th of October, so more news about this soon!

Here is the full press release from the Reels:

The Reels is not saying Goodbye but see you next year

This is a hard press release to write and even harder to ship out. It’s been difficult to face the cruel reality for the passionate snowboarders we are. When you’re putting so much heart into a project, you end up going all in. This is the reason why we – Julien, Gaylord and Aïssam – have decided to postpone this coming edition of THE REELS. We don’t want to make a mediocre event, and are taking the next year to reassess and come back stronger.

We are all or nothing on this. We’ve put so much energy in creating an international film festival that stays true to our community. Snowboarding is made by snowboarders and we wanted to keep this natural vibe alive. The industry tends to forget where we came from, and focuses on competitions and rankings. SNOWBOARDING was made by pioneers that decided to create… to innovate. They used VHS to share with the world their passion. The REELS was created to support what made the foundation of our sport: VIDEOS. It is the main reason why legends and influencers have been supporting us from DAY 1 : Peter Line, Ingemar Backman, Danny Kass, Nicolas Muller, David Benedek, Nico Droz, Gigi Ruef, Arthur Longo, Eddie Wall, Haldor Helgason, etc.

In the last two editions of THE REELS, we focused on providing the best platform for the Production Companies to showcase their work. We rented the biggest theater in Annecy, France in order to offer the best picture quality. We brought together 30+ production companies and invited our industry leaders and tastemakers. The judges panel was top notch. We had an awards ceremony: The Golden Reels. 126+ pro snowboarders from all over the word flew to France to kick start the season with their homies and fans in a fun atmosphere that included art exhibitions, beers, parties and free activities.

The event is costly. Coming out of an Olympic year, we’ve noticed brands were putting their resources to Sochi. Even if passion can move mountains, money is our primary ally. Times are hard for our industry and budgets have been cut left and right. Probably not only due to the Olympics but also because of the economy. “It is a contest that actually messed up their own bread and butter” said Terje Haakonsen. Obviously, we don’t want to go backward because we’re aiming to improve everything we do.

It’s with a tear in our eyes that we are announcing we won’t be running a third edition of THE REELS in October 2014. This is not the end of our event, we’ve already started working on our 2015 edition. Terje Haakonsen proved it best by coming back with an insane Arctic Challenge after taking a break, same with Air & Style canceling Innsbruck 2014, and now doing Los Angeles 2015. We are disappointed because we feel like we are letting down the people we wanted to help in the first place. Writing to the Directors of the movies has been heart breaking, because riders and directors are the ones pushing us to make THE REELS what it is. When you know what goes into one sick video shot, you can’t deceive them with an average event. We have the opportunity of moving the event to a new location, making it bigger and staying in phase with our values.

Stay tuned in for more info on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/thereelsfestival). We’d like to thank all our supporters for the kind words, our public for filling up the theater the last couple year.

We’re willing to answer any questions and comments you may have, so please email us at info@the-reels.com. We are excited to answer and learn from any feed back – even if it’s just a “heck yeah dude” or “bummer”.

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